


come meet me in the sky (i'll be waiting for you)

by hatteringmad



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore Fusion, Alternate Universe - Mythology, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27296959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hatteringmad/pseuds/hatteringmad
Summary: In which Hinata waits in a field full of flowers, and Kenma returns too late.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kozume Kenma
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	come meet me in the sky (i'll be waiting for you)

**Author's Note:**

> An old fic I decided to repost after some editing! Title from "Air Balloon", by Lily Allen.

_Once upon a time, there was a boy who was the child of a god._

_He had many adventures in the mortal realm, and came to be known for his cheerful spirit and fleetness of foot._

When Kenma opens his eyes, he finds himself standing in the garden.

Before him, Hinata is sitting against a twisted tree. The boy's hair is vividly bright against the burnt black of its trunk. Around him, white flowers bloom in all directions. They brush against his clothes, swaying to some phantom breeze that Kenma cannot feel.

It has been a very long time since they last saw each other.

"I didn't think you'd be back," Hinata says.

His voice is quick and bright, the sharp edges dulled but still keen enough to cut. Kenma feels something twist inside his chest. He doesn't know how long he stands there, watching Hinata as Hinata watches him. It is warm, as it always is in the garden. The smell of summer is sweet and light, but it rushes into his lungs as something stale. As he exhales, his breath fogs in the heavy air. He thinks of water and rot. When Hinata pushes himself up in one fluid movement, it is almost a relief. Hinata brushes the ash off his clothes, shakes away the flowers that cling to his feet. When he looks at Kenma again, there is something soft and pale in his face.

"Walk with me," he says, and Kenma doesn't even think not to follow.

_One day, the boy's sister asked him to find her a flower she had seen in a dream._

_He searched and searched to the ends of the earth, but could not find it growing anywhere._

The first spirit they pass is a new one; a girl whose calm blue eyes and long black hair are still clear. Visible. She does not look at them, but drifts silently onward. The new ones are always like that, Kenma thinks. Sad and quiet. Still remembering enough about their lives to regret, but not enough to prevent themselves from forgetting. It is the forgetting that creeps upon them, day by day, year by year. Eventually, the girl's features will blur. Her mind will wander until it never returns. One day, she will spend eternity chattering meaninglessly as she drifts through the garden.

Some people say that such a fate is the cruellest tragedy.

Others yet call it the kindest blessing that death can offer.

Kenma has watched these spirits fade more times than he can count. He does not know if he can call it either. He walks behind Hinata, and the silence between them seems to become a living thing. It was never like this before. But, Kenma thinks, he has only himself to blame.

They pass four more spirits before Hinata speaks again.

“For some reason, I thought things would change.” He laughs. “You know?”

Kenma looks down at his feet. His shoes sink into the ground, as though, beneath the flowers, the earth is ready to claim him. There is a coldness in Hinata now, he realises. It is foreign. He does not like it. Perhaps the garden has not changed - he doubts it ever will - but Hinata has. Kenma has never been good with people, living or spirits, but he knows Hinata. Or, did know him. His brow furrows. He cannot bear to see Hinata's face, but the constant onward plod of his feet is making him dizzy. He looks out at the masses and masses of white flowers instead, their eerie swaying across the garden, without end. Things have changed. He doesn't know what to do, now that they have.

He says, "You don't have to stay anymore."

It comes out harsher than he'd like.

And all of a sudden, Hinata whips around, grabs his arm, wrenches him forward until they are face to face. In the weak grey light, his eyes flash. Kenma shrinks. He is afraid, he thinks. Of this boy, his flame-like hair, his quick bird movements, which have now frozen into stone. Whatever has changed in Hinata is something foreign and wrong. Kenma wants to grip his shoulders and shake and shake, until everything goes back to how it was.

But some things are impossible, even for immortals and gods.

For a long, terrible moment, they stand there, staring at each other. Kenma feels Hinata’s grip on his arm like a burn.

Then, Hinata lets go, steps back. His face is as blank as that of the dead.

"Don't you know, Kenma?" he chides, "I can no longer leave this place."

_At last, just as the boy was about to give up and return home, he met a young man with a shock of greying hair. He was so beautiful, but his eyes were very old._

_This strange man laughed and told him, "What you seek is something all will eventually find, deep beneath the earth."_

Kenma decides to make his way to the castle, while Hinata is asleep.

He wades through the flowers, their petals caught somewhere between bloom and rot. There is no sky above the garden, no sun and no stars. Only a distant moon glimmers, kept there by an old and petulant god. At last he comes to the castle, sitting at the very edge of the garden. Its chaotic mass of towers and spires guard the banks of a sluggish grey river. It is inside this castle that Kenma knows he will find a king.

And this king will be able to give him what he wants.

When he steps into the throne room, Kuroo does not seem surprised. The god of the Underworld grins, long and languid on his throne. His awful black hair casts strange shadows across the sharp lines of his face.

"Why are you here?" he asks with feigned curiosity.

Kenma frowns. "I have come to request something from the King of the Dead," he says.

The fact that Kuroo already knows - most likely knew before Kenma himself even knew - is left cool and pointedly unsaid. They have known each other a very long time, the two of them. In some other world, perhaps they were friends.

In this world, however, Kuroo sits up in his throne and straightens with the power of a god.

"You have come about the boy," he sighs. "You do realise that he was once the child of a god?"

Kenma's eyes widen. He can taste something bitter in his mouth. The child of a god...Hinata, the child of a god.

"Please fix this," he says, because there is nothing else he can say. "Please. Send him back across the river."

Kuroo stands, and the dark hem of his robe pools against the floor. 

"Are you sure?" he asks. "There will be a price, as there always is." The god's mouth purses, his eyes heavy. "It is, after all, only the soul of a mortal boy."

"Even so," Kenma says. "Even so. He is important to me."

_The boy journeyed downward and downward, until he came to a very dark place where there was no sun or sky._

_There he found a garden filled with the flowers that his sister had seen in her dreams._

"Why didn't you ever leave?"

They are sitting beneath the blossom-laden branches of another burnt-black tree. Hinata leans against its trunk with his eyes closed, his shock of fiery hair resting on his arms. Kenma gathers fallen flowers by the handful, and quietly begins to braid them into little crowns. He wonders if he can get away with tucking petals behind Hinata's ears.

"I was waiting," Hinata says, after a while. "For you to come back."

Kuroo's words press themselves insistently against the back of Kenma's throat. It has been days, since he came back to the garden, since he visited the castle, since he was given a way to fix his mistakes. He does not know how many. He wonders how he should tell Hinata. He wonders if he is being selfish. Wanting to spend more time with him like this.

In a moment of courage, Kenma reaches out and places a finished braid around the boy's head. With a voice softer than silence, he turns away and asks, "Do you hate me now?"

Hinata's sharp ears miss nothing. He sits up, his hands twisting his pale robes. His skin seems paler, too, no longer suntanned and warm as Kenma remembers. He has faded. The garden has made him this way.

Suddenly, Kenma cannot bear to hear Hinata's answer. He stands, scattering flower stems and petals across the ground.

"...Kenma?"

A soul for a soul, no matter how great or small. Kuroo may be old and petulant, but he is always fair. Kenma wonders if Hinata will still recognise the world above as the one he once knew. He wonders if Hinata will remember him, if the boy will be happy.

He hopes that, somewhere up there, a bright sun is shining.

"I'm sorry," Kenma says. "Goodbye."

_And in that garden, there was also a being who was neither a spirit nor a god._

_The boy saw that the being was lonely and said, "I will stay here a while, for I would like to be your friend."_

FIN.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments always appreciated ^^


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